A place where the elders, ministers, and ministry leaders of the Southeastern Church of Christ can share how God is working in their lives as they strive to serve the church that He has placed in their care.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The String of the Hyssop Plant by Mike DeCamp

The Hyssop Plant
Courtesy of Wikipedia

The String of the Hyssop Plant

Have you ever seen a little string hanging off of the front
of your shirt and when you tugged on it, you felt a pull under your arm or on
your back?When that happens, you know
that the one little string you see is connected in your shirt in ways you can’t
easily fathom, and you better not pull too hard or you’ll end up ruining the
thing.I liken that phenomenon to
certain strings of cool connections that I sometimes find in the Bible.I love it when I come across something like
that!It just does wonders for my faith.

That happened to me again when I was thinking about what to
write for this article.Maybe you’ve
seen this before, but I came across another little string that is strung across
the web of time, connecting one of the most ancient of Bible stories with a
cherished New Testament event, and it is connected in the middle by a classic Psalm.I hope you find it as inspiring as I did.

We’ll start tugging on the string in Psalm 51.For background, this is the Psalm where King
David pours out his heart in repentance and remorse for the sins he committed
in connection with Bathsheba.He started
out by being idle.That led to
lustfulness…which led to adultery…which led to lies and deceit…which led to
murder.This stands as one of the vilest
periods in the life of one of the pillars of Old Testament faith, but as we
read the following passage he has been confronted the prophet Nathan and his heart is broken:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from
my sin.For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.Against
you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are
right in your verdict and justified when you judge.Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the
time my mother conceived me.Yet you
desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret
place.Cleanse me with hyssop, and I
will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones
you have crushed rejoice.Hide your face
from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within
me.Do not cast me from your presence or
take your Holy Spirit from me.Restore
to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain
me.Psalm 51:1-12

I am struck by how low his heart has fallen.“…my sin is always before me.”The temptation toward hopelessness.“Surely I was sinful at birth,…”He knew he had no argument.“…you are right in your verdict and justified
when you judge.”He had lost all joy and
desperately wanted it back.“Restore to
me the joy of your salvation…”

One line has perplexed me over the years.I just didn’t understand it, but I never took
the time to dig into it until now.It
just was one of those odd little things in scripture that didn’t seem to have
that much significance.Boy was I
wrong.It is incredibly significant!

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I
will be whiter than snow.”

“Cleanse me with hyssop.”

What in the world is hyssop?That is the question I asked myself as I started to trace this crazy
little string.I thought maybe it was a
plant that the ancient world used as a cleaning agent.Seemed reasonable.Then I did a quick internet search and found
that it was just an aromatic plant common to the Mediterranean area.It was sometimes used as an herb, but can
have some toxic qualities.Apparently it
does have some detergent qualities also, but that doesn’t seem to be all that
significant of a feature.

What could David have meant when he said he wanted to be
cleaned with hyssop?

To find that meaning, let’s go back in time to Exodus, to
the plague of the firstborn, to the very first Passover:

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to
them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the
Passover lamb.Take a bunch of hyssop,
dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on
both sides of the doorframe.None of you
shall go out of the door of your house until morning.When the LORD goes through the land to strike
down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe
and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter
your houses and strike you down.Exodus
12:21-23

Hyssop was used to spread the blood of the sacrificial lamb
on the doorframes to keep the destroyer from killing the Israelites, a key
moment in history for the Jewish faith and particularly for King David.Just as the Israelites were saved from the
wrath of God by the use of hyssop as a tool, perhaps David is calling on that imagery
to ask for God to keep the wrath from overwhelming him.Could that be it?Could that be all?

Still though, there is no mention of a cleansing with
hyssop.It still doesn’t fully fit.

We’ve looked back.Now, let’s look forward from David’s time:

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so
that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they
soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and
lifted it to Jesus’ lips.When he had
received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”With that, he bowed his head and gave up his
spirit.John 19:28-30

“…so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am
thirsty.”

How does Jesus saying that fulfill scripture?Perhaps Psalm 22:15.But…however… maybe it isn’t just what he said
that fulfills the scripture.Maybe it is
what was done as a result of what he said that fulfills it also.

“…so they…put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and
lifted it to Jesus’ lips.”

Just as hyssop was used as the tool to spread the blood on
the doorframes….so was it used as a tool when Jesus blood was spread on our
spiritual doorframes, cleansing us from the stain of our sinfulness.

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I
will be whiter than snow.”

David is the bridge and hyssop is the string.It ties the sacrificial lamb of Exodus to the
sacrifice of the Lamb of God in John, crossing the bridge of David’s sin,
guilt, and repentance.David could feel
the depth of his sin, he could recognize the potential wrath of God, and he
could prophetically look forward to the cleansing of the blood of the Lamb.

Isn’t God simply amazing?The layers of meaning in the scripture are astounding.Across centuries…through varied authors…He
ties key points of history together with a simple plant!Our salvation is made clear in ordinary
foliage.

One of my all-time favorite passages of scripture is Psalm
51:10-12.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast
spirit within me.Do not cast me from your
presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to
sustain me.

I am a sinful man.I
feel it every day.I think the older a
person gets, the more aware he is of how short he falls from God’s
standard.It can weigh on you.It can strip you of your joy.It can cause you to lose your willingness to
go on.Sometimes, I am tempted to allow
the discouragement from falling short to get me to throw in the towel…hang up
my spiritual cleats….quit.

But, then there is the hyssop plant.And, it reminds me of the way that Jesus has
cleansed me…he has washed that blood all over the doorframe of my spirit, and I
am now whiter than snow.Then, that
snowy salvation blows up into a blizzard of joy that wells up in my heart and bursts
forth on the lips of praise.

1 comment:

Mike. Thanks for the link to this encouraging piece. I caught the thread of where you were headed from the beginning, but didn't have verse locations memorized. As always, Jesus gives us hope even in His Death.